The Sleepover Club
Goes for Goal!

by Fiona Cummings

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Have you been Invited to all these Sleepovers?

Sleepover Kit List

Copyright

About the Publisher

She turns, she shoots, she scores! Yeeaah! Kenny for England, Kenny for England! Whoops, sorry, I didn’t see you there. Blinding shot, wasn’t it? But what do you expect? I am a footballing genius after all!

Actually, I’m just getting in a bit of practice before the others get here for a kick-around. Why are you looking at me like that? Yes I do mean the rest of the Sleepover Club, what’s so strange about that? But of course, you don’t know do you? Cool! I’m going to love telling you about our latest Sleepover adventure. You’re never going to believe it. Never in a million years!

As you know, I think that football is the best game in the world, and I can’t understand people who don’t. But it seems that the others thought I was the one who was weird. Now I suppose I can understand Fliss for having that attitude because, well – she’s so girly, basically. I mean, mud and Fliss just don’t go. She complains when it’s cold. She complains when it’s wet. And there’s no way that you’d get her running about outside in a skimpy pair of shorts messing up her hair. The only good thing about football as far as Fliss is concerned is David Beckham. And the only reason she knows about him is because she’s seen posters of him in stupid girly magazines. As I say, I sort of see where she’s coming from, but the others? I just don’t understand them at all.

Take Frankie. She’s my best mate and you’d think that she’d agree with me about the most important thing in my life, wouldn’t you? Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. She says she can’t see the point of football at all. But that’s just crazy, because she plays netball and she thinks that’s OK. And football’s the same, isn’t it? Apart from the fact that you kick the ball – and you have goals instead of nets – and the pitch is bigger… Look, what I mean is, in both games whoever scores the most wins, right? So basically they’re the same. Everybody thinks that Frankie is some brainbox or something, but if you ask me, sometimes she can be really dumb!

Rosie’s the same. Her brother Adam is crazy about football, but all she does is wind me up by calling me a hooligan. Just because I go to watch Leicester City with my dad. As far as she’s concerned, it’s as though every single football supporter goes around beating up old grannies in their spare time. My dad’s a doctor for goodness sake, and he’s not violent at all. He never even shouts out anything rude at a match. And sometimes Leicester City play so badly they deserve to be shouted at, believe me!

The person I really can’t understand though is Lyndz. She goes to football matches with her grandad and her brothers sometimes. We all sit together. She loves going. I know she does, because she gets all excited and jiggles about in her seat. You ought to hear her when someone scores a goal. But in front of the others she always pretends that she’s not that interested. You just can’t work some people out, can you?

But really, the fact that I love football so much has never been that big a deal. It’s just a fact of life that the others accept. Or at least, that was the case. All that changed when the notice appeared at school.

Now you should know that as soon as a new notice goes up everybody crowds round, as though it’s some really important event. I know, I know, it’s a bit sad isn’t it? Well anyway, one Monday, there was this big crush in the corridor at the end of lunchtime break.

“Looks like there’s a new notice up!” said Frankie, elbowing her way to the front of the crowd.

“Hope it’s something exciting!” Rosie shouted, joining her.

Fliss, Lyndz and I didn’t want to feel left out, so we got some serious elbow action going and worked our way to the front to join the others.

There was a bright spanking new notice up, but somehow the others weren’t impressed. As soon as Fliss read it she turned away in disgust.

“If I’d known it was going to be so boring, I wouldn’t have wasted all that energy!” she sniffed, and pushed her way back out through the crowd again. The others followed her. But it was one of the best notices I’d ever read, so I stayed there a bit longer just staring at it. It said:

FIVE-A-SIDE PRACTICES

Wednesdays 3.30 – 4.30pm In the School Gym with Mr Pownall

EVERYBODY WELCOME

“Brilliant!” I yelled, and ran to join the others back in Mrs Weaver’s classroom.

“I don’t know what you’re so excited about, Frogface,” sneered Ryan Scott, who had followed me in. “Mr Pownall doesn’t want soppy girls trying to play football. It’s a boys’ game. You’d just be wasting your time if you turned up.”

“I know you can’t read, Spotty Scotty,” I snapped back at him, “so I’d better tell you that Mr Pownall has written ‘everyone welcome’ and underlined ‘everyone’. So he must mean that he doesn’t mind if no-talent wasters like you turn up. And he’ll certainly be pleased to see talent like mine – whether I’m a girl or not.”

“Yeah, right McKenzie, in your dreams!”

“Ryan Scott, why are you always the last one to find your place?” Mrs Weaver suddenly appeared. “Is there something wrong with your chair? Does it bring you out in a rash? Please enlighten me.”

Ryan Scott blushed beetroot red and sat down. But not before he’d given me a really filthy look. I love it when he gets told off like that, he just can’t handle it.

When we’d all settled down to some maths, Frankie whispered to me:

“I think Scotty’s probably right, you know. I bet Mr Pownall doesn’t really expect any girls to turn up to his five-a-side practice.”

“Well, he’s going to be surprised then,” I told her with a grin, “because I’m definitely going.”

“You’ll only embarrass yourself,” warned Fliss from the other side of the table.

“And whose side are you on?” I asked. “As if I couldn’t guess.” I started to chant, “Felicity loves Ryan, Felicity loves Ryan!”

“Shut up!” hissed Fliss. It was her turn to do an impression of a beetroot. She and Ryan Scott certainly have a lot in common!

“Laura McKenzie!” Mrs Weaver said sharply. “I hope there’s a very good excuse for your outburst.”

“Sorry, I just got a bit carried away,” I apologised. “Maths always does that to me. I must be allergic to it!”

“This allergic reaction probably explains why your maths book is always in such a mess,” said Mrs Weaver crisply. “I think the cure for your complaint is extra maths homework. I think you’ll soon find that you’re not allergic to it any more. Would you like to try that?”

Mrs Weaver was looking at me and everyone else was falling about laughing.

“Actually, I’m feeling a lot better now, thank you,” I mumbled.

After that I kept my head down and got on with my work. I thought that if Mrs Weaver caught me talking again she just might carry out her threat and I couldn’t face that. I nearly cracked when Ryan Scott started flicking bits of rubber at me though. He was dying to get me into trouble and I was dying to bop him one. But I didn’t. I kept cool and promised myself that I’d teach him a lesson at the five-a-side practice.

It was quite a relief to get outside at break time. I did a few cartwheels on the grass next to our classroom, then went to join the others. They were all standing around watching Ryan Scott kicking a ball about with his mates.

“Aw, come on, we could do better than that!” I moaned. “They’re useless.”

“They look pretty good to me!” said Rosie.

“All right then,” I reasoned, “if you come to the five-a-side practice you’ll soon be good enough to join in with them.”

“Uurgh, we wouldn’t want to!” Frankie shuddered. “I couldn’t think of anything worse. Stupid football AND horrible boys. Gross!”

Frankie just wasn’t being reasonable, but I wasn’t giving up yet.

“You wouldn’t mind spending more time with the boys at the practice, would you Fliss?” I asked. She was going all moony-eyed looking at stupid Ryan Scott.

“Leave it out Kenny!” she snapped. “I can’t play football and everybody would laugh at me. I have enough of that with you lot!”

“Ah, diddums!” we all yelled, and grabbed her so hard in one of our group bear hugs that soon she was squealing for mercy!

“What about you, Lyndz?” I asked when we finally let Fliss go. “You’ll come to the practice won’t you? It’ll be fun, honest!”

Lyndz didn’t look too sure about that.

“I don’t think so Kenny,” she replied. “I promised Mrs McAllister that I’d go down to the stables after school on Wednesday. She’s got a show the next day and I said I’d help to groom the horses.”

“You and your horses!” I grumbled. I’d kind of been banking on Lyndz coming with me.

“Hey, what about you, Rosie?” I then asked. “You’re good at sports. Wouldn’t you love to show those boys that we’re just as good as them?”

“Well, yes,” said Rosie slowly.

“Thanks Rosie, my great mate!” I slapped her on the back. “I knew that you wouldn’t let me down!” I scowled at the others, especially Frankie.

“Hang on a minute, Kenny,” said Rosie. “I only said that I’d like to teach the boys a lesson. I don’t think I’ll be doing that at the five-a-side practice though.”

“What do you mean?” I yelled.

“Look, it’s all right for you,” Rosie explained. “You’re always playing football, so you know what it’s all about. We don’t. I can’t even kick a ball for my dog. The last thing we want is to show ourselves up in front of Ryan Scott and his stupid mates. They’ll never let us forget it. I’m afraid you’re on your own on this one. Sorry!”

I couldn’t believe it. My so-called friends were all going to let me down.

The whistle blew and the others ran inside. It was our turn to choose books from the library and they were all excited about which ones they were going to borrow. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the practice on Wednesday. It felt a bit funny knowing that I’d be going on my own. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t scared or anything. I do tons of stuff by myself outside school. It’s just that we usually do school-based activities all together. It would have been a laugh having the others there, that’s all. As it was, it looked as though I would have to stand up for Girl Power on the football pitch all by myself!

I didn’t exactly give up hope about the others coming to the practice with me, but by Wednesday afternoon I knew for sure that I’d be going by myself. I’d spent all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday morning trying to persuade them to come along – but no joy. I mean, what does a girl have to do to get a bit of support from her friends?

I tried threatening them by saying that if they didn’t come with me I’d never speak to them again.

“Sounds like a great idea to me!” laughed Frankie. “What do you think, Lyndz?”

Lyndz giggled and said, “You bet!” so that didn’t work.

“What about if I buy you all loads of sweets?” I asked.

“You?” shrieked Rosie. “You’ve never got any money! What do you plan on buying them with? Buttons?”

Hmm, I guess I hadn’t thought that through either.

“All right then,” I told them. “If you don’t come with me, I’ll put up a poster saying how much Fliss is in love with Ryan Scott.”

Frankie just said, “Like everybody doesn’t already know!”

Fliss meanwhile blushed and went all silly and giggly. If you ask me, she actually wanted me to put up a poster. That girl has a serious problem!

Well, after that it was no surprise when the clock hit 3.30pm that the others all went home giggling and shouting, “Bye Kenny, have fun!”

And I headed for the gym – alone.

I went in to the girls’ changing rooms first and pulled from my bag my trackie bottoms and my favourite Leicester City football shirt. I couldn’t wait to take off my stupid school uniform. I hate it. It’s the only time that I EVER wear a skirt. I’m sure that I’d work much better if I could wear what I wanted at school. I’d probably even be able to do maths. But I guess if Fliss could wear what she wanted, she’d never get to school in the first place because she’d be dithering between her mini-skirts and her bootlegs. Then of course school would turn into one big fashion show. Maybe uniforms aren’t such a bad idea after all. But I still think girls should be allowed to wear trousers if we want to.

I was thinking about the school uniform thing the whole time I was getting changed. And let’s face it, I had plenty of time because no-one else came in to disturb me. But by the time I’d pulled on my trainers, I didn’t really care. I’d got myself all pumped up and I was ready to face Ryan Scott and his stupid cronies.

When I got out into the gym, everything looked different. A new pitch had been marked out in the middle and there were a titchy pair of goals at either end. I knew it must be a five-a-side pitch so I went to investigate.

“It’s Laura McKenzie isn’t it?” a voice suddenly boomed behind me. I spun round so quickly I went all dizzy. The voice belonged to Mr Pownall. He must have come into the gym when I wasn’t looking.

“Th… that’s right!” I stuttered.

“I wondered if you’d be coming along to my five-a-side practices, Laura,” Mr Pownall continued. “I’ve heard how much you like football. It’s good to see you!”

I smiled at him, but there was something that I just had to put right. I was going to feel really stupid in front of the boys if he went around calling me Laura all the time.

“Actually, I hate being called Laura,” I told him. “My friends all call me Kenny.”

“Right, Kenny it is,” smiled Mr Pownall. “Ah, here come the rest of our happy band. For a moment then I thought we might have to devise a new game: one-a-side football!”

There was a great clatter as the doors from the boys’ changing room burst open and Ryan Scott and Danny McCloud stalked across the gym. They were pretending to be Gladiators. Pathetic! They were followed by a group of younger boys who were all looking at Ryan Scott as though he was Alan Shearer or something. I mean, come on! The boy looks more like Chuckie from Rugrats!

As soon as Ryan Scott saw me he asked angrily, “What’s she doing here?”

“I’ve come to show you a thing or two about football!” I snapped back.

“Yeah, right!” sneered Scotty-chops. “Don’t you think we should see if she knows how to kick the ball, sir? She’s only going to slow us down if she can’t, and that wouldn’t be fair!”

(You see – Ryan Scott and Fliss do have a lot in common! Fliss is always going on about things being ‘fair’.)

Before Mr Pownall could answer, Danny McCloud had tossed a football towards me.

“I’ll show them!” I told myself, and started heading the ball, keeping it up in the air as long as I could. Then I took it on my knee and bounced it from one knee to the other without letting it touch the ground. Then – and this is the clever bit – I trapped the ball on my foot and flicked it on to my knee and kept doing that until Ryan Scott got so mad that he snatched the ball away from me. The others kids broke into applause, and old Scotty looked so mad I thought he might explode.

“That’s easy to do!” he snapped. “I bet you can’t pass it properly though, can you?”

I was just about to prove that my passing skills were as deadly as David Beckham’s, when Mr Pownall grabbed the football.

“That was very impressive Kenny,” he said. “But I’m afraid heading skills won’t be of any use to you in five-a-side football.”

We all looked blankly at him.

“You see this really is a game of FOOTball. If anyone kicks the ball over head height, it automatically means that a free kick is awarded to the other team.”

I must admit that I’d always thought that five-a-side football was exactly the same as the eleven-a-side variety, but with fewer people on the team obviously. WRONG! Mr Pownall explained that it’s a different game entirely.

“When the ball goes over the touchline, a player from the other team doesn’t THROW it in, they have to ROLL it in,” he explained. “And corners are rolled in too.”

“But you do score the same, don’t you sir?” asked Danny McCloud, who was beginning to look a bit confused.

“Well, yes and no,” replied Mr Pownall. “The object of the game is still to get the ball in the back of the net, but you can only score from outside the area. There are no delicate tap-ins with five-a-side!”

We’d been standing around quite a bit, and I think Mr Pownall sensed that we were eager to get on and play.

“Right we’ll discuss the rules of the game as we go along. Let’s get warmed up first!” he said.

We jogged round, and when we were warm enough we stretched out. Then Mr Pownall divided us into groups. He lined up some cones, and first we had to run through them and back to our team, then we had to dribble a ball through them. Ryan Scott was in my team, worse luck, so he never stopped trying to wind me up.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” he muttered when I was waiting for my turn. “Beginners’ luck! Just wait until we play a proper game – then you’ll see how it’s really done!”

“Yeah right!” I hissed back. “Like I’ll be impressed by you! I’ve seen you playing football in the playground, don’t forget. I’ve seen better skills from my mate’s dog!”

Ryan Scott was not a happy boy! I think Mr Pownall sensed that we weren’t exactly the best of friends, so he made us all swap teams for the next exercises and made sure that Ryan and I were on different ones. Actually, that was cool because it meant that we were racing against each other. We did this thing where you had to dribble the ball around various obstacles, then shoot at goal. I’m so used to doing that kind of thing in the garden that it was a piece of cake and I scored every time. Old Scotty kept getting freaked when he saw me and shot his ball over the goal every time. It caught Mr Pownall right in the face once which was kind of funny, although we didn’t know whether we should laugh or not.

Danny McCloud was on my team, and you could tell that he was kind of impressed by the way I could play football. Although of course he’s a boy, so he found it really hard to admit it. It was only when our team came first in all the exercises that he got a bit carried away and said: “Hey McKenzie you’re quite good!” before adding, “… for a girl!”

The time just whizzed past. I couldn’t believe it when Mr Pownall said that the hour was almost up. We just had ten minutes left, and he said that we could have a go at playing a proper five-a-side game, just to get the feel of it. There were nine of us at the practice so he said that he’d make up the numbers.

“Right Kenny and Ryan, you can pick the teams. You first, Kenny”

I love picking teams. I looked at the faces in front of me, all looking eager – and desperate not to be the one left until the end. But you’ll never guess who was looking most eager of all and jumping around going:

“Kenny, pick me, pick me!”

Danny McCloud, that’s who! I mean, that’s not cool from someone of his age, now is it? But still, I felt kind of chuffed. I mean, he wanted to come on my team rather than on his best mate Ryan’s! I would have picked him anyway just to wind old Scotty-chops up. But he actually wanted to be on my team. Boy, did Ryan look MAD!

After we’d picked the teams we didn’t have time for much of a game. But I did have time to do this blinding run, skipping over a tackle from Scotty before passing the ball to Danny who shot it into the back of the net. Usually in that situation I’d go ballistic and do some crazy celebration. But this time was different. I mean, did I really want to fling my arms around Danny McCloud in order to celebrate the goal? I think not! That’s when it hit me that this school five-a-side thing with only boys for company might have a few drawbacks. I really had to get my mates interested. But that was going to be easier said than done – as I was about to find out!

After that first five-a-side football practice, everything suddenly got very complicated. You see, I was suddenly in demand! You could have knocked me down with a feather when as soon as I got into the playground on Thursday morning, Danny McCloud shouted out:

“Oi, McKenzie! Fancy a game?”

He was holding up a football and was with a couple of the other guys in our class.

Now, that kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. I know that boys would never say it straight out, but this was like them admitting that they thought I was good at football.

I did look round to see if Frankie or the others were there before I joined in, I really did. But they weren’t. So of course I went over to play footie. Bad move! The others went ballistic with me when I finally caught up with them in the classroom.

“We always meet up before the start of school,” Fliss kept whingeing, like I’d just poisoned her goldfish or something.

“I expect you’ll be dropping us at break times now as well!” sniffed Frankie as soon as I’d sat down.

“Yeah, and playing with your new boyfriends,” added Rosie.

“They are not my boyfriends,” I told them angrily.

And to be honest, I didn’t think I’d be asked to play with the boys again anyway, because when Ryan Scott had turned up he didn’t exactly seem thrilled that I was playing football with his mates.

Sure enough, when lunchtime came, all the boys went to play football and walked past me as though I wasn’t even there. Except for Danny McCloud. He just shrugged his shoulders like he was apologising or something.

“Looks like they were just using you after all!” sneered Fliss with a told-you-so smirk plastered all over her face.

“Well, maybe I was using them to kill time until you lot turned up!” I snapped back at her.

“You didn’t exactly notice us when we did appear!” moaned Rosie.

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that. You know what it’s like when you’re busy playing something.”

“You mean you’d rather play with the boys than play with us!” Fliss exploded. “Well that’s charming, isn’t it?”

“Shut up for goodness sake!” I yelled. “They were playing football and I just happened to join in. That’s not a crime, is it?”

“Oooh, get her!” the others piped up.

“Chill out Kenny, for goodness sake!” laughed Frankie.

“Yeah, chill out!” shrieked Lyndz and Rosie together. They ran up behind me and started to tickle me all over. In seconds I was writhing in a heap on the ground with tears streaming down my face.

“I’m going to get you for this!” I eventually managed to gasp.

“Oh yeah?” giggled Rosie. “Prove it.”

I struggled up from the ground and managed to grab hold of Fliss. I bundled into her and started barging her over to the grass outside our classroom. She was dead scared at first, you could tell, but then she realised I was playing one of our Gladiator games and started to barge me back. Just when I thought I’d got the upper hand, Frankie grabbed hold of my arm. She spun me round faster and faster like one of those crazy fairground rides. It was wicked! When our legs finally gave way we collapsed in a heap on the ground.

“Now come on Kenny, admit it!” she gasped when she’d got her breath back. “You have much more fun with us than with some stupid boys, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure!” I agreed, but inside I was still feeling kind of annoyed. I mean, I was getting all this earache about one little kick-around. It was like the others thought they owned me or something. And besides, if they’d bothered to come along to the five-a-side practice with me in the first place, they could have joined in with the footie too. Then they might not have been so jealous.

I was still feeling pretty annoyed with them by afternoon break. So when Danny McCloud came over and asked if I wanted to join in their football game, I leapt at the chance. You ought to have seen the others’ faces. I swear that Fliss could have swallowed a bus, her mouth was so wide open. Ryan Scott wasn’t too thrilled about it either, but one of the other boys had had to go home with a bad stomach ache so he really didn’t have much choice.

It was well cool. You see, it was great to be actually playing football with someone. Usually I have to practice my skills by myself in the garden. Molly the Monster, my stupid sister, wouldn’t be seen dead playing football. Neither would Emma my eldest sister, and Mum and Dad are just too busy.

I had a great time. Even Ryan Scott wasn’t too bad after a while. He’s a totally different person when he’s playing football – he’s almost normal. But of course my friends weren’t happy at all. They kept trying to make out that if I liked them so much I shouldn’t really need to play football as well. Crazy.

Anyway, from then on I tried a sort of compromise. I played football with the boys during morning and afternoon breaks, and stayed with my mates at lunchtime. But they were still mad at me. Especially as the more I played football and the more I went to the five-a-side practices, the more I found that I was sharing jokes with the boys in class. And of course the others couldn’t join in. I felt bad, I really did, but I must admit that I was enjoying myself too. I know that it’s not going to sound too good admitting this, but it felt great to be so popular with the boys. I could more than hold my own in their rough games and they sort of respected me for that. I think they accepted me as one of them, which was great because any of my friends will tell you what a tomboy I am.

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